When I’m in the car, I like to listen to the “Classic Hits” radio station — basically, rock-and-roll from the 1970s, which was the pinnacle, as far as I’m concerned. Amid all the great music from that great era, however, there are some songs that make you scratch your head in mystification: “How did that lame crap ever become a hit?”
But hey, it was the ’70s and we were all high, y’know.
Nobody had more lame-crap hits than Steve Miller Band, and don’t get me wrong: I liked Steve Miller back in the day, and still enjoy listening to his hits, but from the standpoint of songcraft, the guy sucked. The closest he ever got to writing lyrics that made any sense at all was “Take the Money and Run,” but that song is a celebration of murder and robbery, so it kind of proves the point.
Here’s the way I figure Steve Miller operated as a songwriter: He would come up with a nifty little guitar riff, and then a catch-phrase to be repeated in the chorus. Once he had the guitar riff and the chorus, he would be like, “Yeah, OK, gotta write some verses now.”
This is where the whole thing always went to hell. You can go through the song catalog of the Steve Miller Band and good luck finding more than one or two songs where the lyrics of the verses have a damn thing to do with the chorus — or with anything else, really.
Even in his biggest hit, “The Joker,” the lyrics are total nonsense, and don’t even get me started on “Jungle Love.” The guy obviously wasn’t even trying to write lyrics. He just sang whatever the hell came into his head — any words that rhymed would do — and nobody seemed to care, because the albums kept selling.
While it’s hard to say that there was ever a worse song than “Jungle Love,” however, the prototypical stupid Steve Miller Band hit, which actually made it to No. 1 in 1976, was “Rock’n Me”:
Well I’ve been lookin’ real hard
And I’m tryin’ to find a job
But it just keeps gettin’ tougher every day
But I got to do my part cause I know in my heart
I got to please my sweet baby, yeah
Well, I ain’t superstitious
And I don’t get suspicious
But my woman is a friend of mine
And I know that it’s true that all the things that I do
Will come back to me in my sweet time
So keep on rockin’ me baby
Keep on a rockin’ me baby
Keep on a rockin’ me baby
Keep on a rockin’ me baby
I went from Phoenix, Arizona
All the way to Tacoma
Philadelphia, Atlanta, L.A.
Northern California where the girls are warm
So I could be with my sweet baby, yeah
Keep on a rockin’ me baby . . .
Et cetera. I mean, c’mon: “Northern California where the girls are warm”? What the hell does that even mean, Steve? But from such ridiculous nothingness, the man crafted a career!
And just in case you’re wondering, the B-side of the single of “Rock’n Me” was a song entitled, “Shu Ba Da Du Ma Ma Ma Ma.”
“Taking Care Of Business” was BTO’s first hit.
I’ll see you and raise you a Drang Nach Osten.
I’ll see you and raise you a Drang Nach Osten.
You’re not old enough to remember Beatlemania, so we’ll cut you some slack.
Don’t worry, most of us are too nice to throw anything harder than a nerf ball.
“Space Cowboy”, oh how I loved that song!
I never played Drang Nach Osten, but did get to examine the materials. It looked like a good game. I moved in that time frame and I was never able to get anyone with the intellect required to competently play the games with, alas.
[…] There’s one problem you’re likely to encounter while immersing yourself in 1970s “classic rock,” and Robert Stacy McCain is quite familiar with it: […]
Finding the space to lay out all the maps and charts for a Europa Series game was no small consideration either.
How about Donald Fagan and Walter Becker of the inimitable Steely Dan?
Best rock rhyme ever. The Mamas and the Papas, “Creeque Alley”
“Cass was a sophomore/ planned to go to Swathemore”
The best- “Hallelujah” and “The Future” are off the charts
We never had the room for it. SPI’s “Global War” was about as big as we could get.
My son tells me about scenes from that show/series all the time. It was a funny show, for sure.
Nobody pays Miller to write anything anyone wants to read.
Hard to believe.
Ohio wore out Mungo Jerry’s In The Summertime.
Have you tried synchronizing Dark Side of the Moon with The Wizard of Oz? I tried it once, wasn’t as impressed as many, but I also had it off by about 1.5 seconds I think.
When I was there it was “The Letter”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQaUs5J2wdI
Bobby Bare’s “500 Miles.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfAmLz5Evxo
And Bobby Bare’s “Detroit City”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqoE_T4Fniw
The two Bare songs were old in the late 60s, but they were on the juke box at the Snack Bar at Robinson Barracks and guys tried to wear them out. They got submerged by the Box Tops for a few weeks and it made a come back in ’69 for some reason. There was some old stuff on the juke at RB.
I liked both the Stones version and the BS&T version. One of the few songs of all time where a cover was so incredibly good.
(I understand Guns n Roses did a cover that charted, but I never heard it.)
SftD and Jumpin’ Jack Flash were two of Jagger’s best lyrical works.
If you’ve never heard the Tori Amos cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit, it’s worth checking out. And of course Weird Al’s parody of it was all about how no one could understand their lyrics.
I am of a similar opinion regarding The Rolling Stones. However, I think they are the only band to have two different pinball machines named after them.
In the desert, they can’t remember your name …….
No, this is much better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGF5ROpjRAU
Billy, don’t be a hero ….
“Rolling Stones is the most overrated band ever? *duck and cover*”
Thems fightin words ……..
Here you go Fin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FklUAoZ6KxY
I grew up as an art-rocker way back (Yes, ELP, Tull, etc.) so the Rolling Stones were always a head-scratcher for me. “That’s it? That’s a whole song? They’re done?”
I LOVED “The Future!” And “I’m Your Man.”
This might make you respect Al Stewart even more. I saw him in concert once long ago, and between songs he said, “I have a new album out, but that doesn’t matter, because Leonard Cohen has a new one out. You need to buy it.”
Thank was only near the end with their last album, In Through The Out Door.
Respectfully,
Robert Oswald Belvedere,
Priest, Church Of Jimmy Page
Also, Steve Miller could not construct a rhyme to save his life. “Justice” and “Facts is?”
I learned early on never to read the lyrics on the liner until I’d listened to the song several times and decided whether I liked it or not. Because most rock lyrics, on their own are flat out stupid. Even the supposedly “intellectual” prog rock stuff. I loved Yes and ELP and Gentle Giant and Genesis, but decided reading the lyrics before listening could ruin the song.
“Girls are warm” means bisexual. The song is about doing 3-ways with his girlfriend in various cities while on tour. Don’t be suspicious refers to jealousy, don’t be superstitious to religious prohibition.
Not “Painted Black.” “Paint It, Black.” Verbatim.
Yeah, Syd was the guy they meant when they did that one album about the dude that went crazy…
No wait, that was every album they did…
No way, man, the due was, like totally stoned when he wrote and recorded that shit. You can, like totally tell maaaaaan.
Steve Miller gained quite a reputation for being a hook thief. But Joe Walsh really can’t be properly appreciated unless you get into his James Gang stuff. Something I didn’t realize until I went to http://www.WhoSampled.com — one of the greatest websites ever, IMHO — and found out that Fatboy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now” (one of my favorite all-time records) sampled the James Gang’s “Ashes, The Rain, and I.”
To quote another silly record from the 70s (“Got My Mind Made Up” by Instant Funk), SAY WHAAAAT?
I’ve lived in San Francisco my entire life, and I’ve never heard anyone say of a bisexual woman “she’s warm.”
What ever do you mean? Don’t you see the deeper meaning in “A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido”? Not to mention “Hey! … Yay!”
Best band named for a fictional dildo.
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain…
“Walk Away” by the James Gang is one of the best songs EVER.
That’s just the Brain Damage we all who lived through the 1970’s have a little of.
Old blues line, like ‘squeeze my lemon ’til the juice runs down my leg’.
And too old.
I’m sure you know where’s it at…yeah, yeah, yeah…
I never heard “Macho City” until minutes ago, but upon the release of the Circle of Love LP, I read a LOT of ink about how long and mind-numbingly horrendous it was. It IS bad for its time, but by today’s standards, not so much. I’d rather listen to “Macho” on endless loop than, for instance, Justin Bieber’s “Somebody To Love” or “Crank That” by Soulja Boy or anything by Nicki Minaj.
My strongest memory of Miller’s Circle album was then-popular S.F. morning DJ Alex Bennett scratching the needle in the middle of “Get On Home,” which was a variation of the folk song “Cindy” (“Get on home, Cindy, Cindy, I’m-a marry you someday…”). He said he couldn’t take playing it any more, and that it would be worth it if he was fired for refusing to play it.
And everything is green and submarine.
I was thinking of exactly the same line.
I once came up with a Listening To Music Drinking Game. The only rule was to drink whenever you heard “ooh”, “yeah”, or “baby”.
I find that the albums Thick As A Brick and Tales From Topographic Oceans are great for long interstate drives.